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Atomic_Templar
2018-06-03, 01:52 PM
Blade Dancer (name tentative)

Floating blades
Starting at 3rd level, you now have the ability to control blades, using them as an extension of your will. When you take the attack action, you can now attack with floating blades under your control as a special ranged attack. You treat this special ranged attack as a normal melee attack with a range of 10ft using the normal modifier and damage die of the weapon being controlled. The only weapons you can control this way are bladed weapons without the two-handed, heavy, or long property. You cannot use any other weapons or shields when manipulating blades this way.
You can have up to two weapons under your control starting at 3rd level. This increases to 4 weapons at 7th level, and 6 weapons as 15th level.

Blade Shield
At 7th level, you can call your blades to your defense in the nick of time before an attack hits. You can use your reaction to add +3 to your AC in response to an attack made against you, negating the attack if your AC rises above the attack roll made. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your strength modifier (a minimum of once) and regain lost uses after completing a long rest.

Sword Tornado
At 10th level, you gain the ability to send your blades out in a rapid vortex around you. As a bonus action, you can send out your blades fan out in a rotating circle with a 10ft radius centered on you. Anyone who travels through this threshold takes slashing damage equal to half of your fighter level. Individuals don’t take this damage again until they leave the circle and attempt to enter again. This ability lasts for one minute and can be used twice with lost uses being regained after a long rest.

Sword Burst
At 15th level, you gain the ability to conjure blades and hurl them at your foes, forcefully exploding on a hit. You can replace your normal attacks with ranged weapon attacks with a range of 120 that deal 1d8 magical piercing damage and 1d10 force damage on a hit. You can only perform these attacks for a number of rounds equal to your strength modifier (a minimum of once) but the rounds you use them on don’t have to be consecutive. The number of uses refreshes on a long rest.

Lalliman
2018-06-03, 04:34 PM
I don't have as much time to answer as I'd like, but I'll give you some thoughts.


Blade Dancer (name tentative)
Blade Dancer invokes the thought of fencer- or dervish-like characters, which this isn't. Master of Blades, Floating Blade, or Kinetic Blade come to mind as better options.


Floating blades
Starting at 3rd level, you now have the ability to control blades, using them as an extension of your will. When you take the attack action, you can now attack with floating blades under your control as a special ranged attack. You treat this special ranged attack as a normal melee attack with a range of 10ft using the normal modifier and damage die of the weapon being controlled. The only weapons you can control this way are bladed weapons without the two-handed, heavy, or long property. You cannot use any other weapons or shields when manipulating blades this way.
First of all, the long property doesn't exist, I guess you mean reach. Secondly, this is a lengthy description just to say that your melee attacks have 10 foot reach. Could be reworded a little more concisely.

That aside, the fighter is supposed to get a major power boost at 3rd level, and this isn't that. It should be the defining feature for this archetype, but all it does mechanically is increase your reach by 5 feet. It needs something more.


You can have up to two weapons under your control starting at 3rd level. This increases to 4 weapons at 7th level, and 6 weapons as 15th level.
I don't know how to interpret this. The rules for attacking don't actually interact with how many weapons you wield, so you'll still have however many attacks you normally do, plus one off-hand attack, assuming that the floating swords can count as being dual-wielded. If you did mean for it to allow one attack per sword, that's really disadvisable because it messes up the attack economy in weird and probably overpowered ways. What is the intention here?

Blade Shield is fine, except 3 is an unusual number. Features that give numerical bonuses are pretty much always +1, +2, + ability modifier, or + proficiency. Or, to stick to the theme, make the AC bonus equal to the amount of floating weapons you have.

Sword Tornado is potent, but given that it's untargeted it seems fine. "Twice per long rest" is unprecedented in 5e though, it's always either once, equal to an ability score modifier, or based on some level-scaling feature. Once per short rest should be basically the same, and be more consistent with the fighter class as a whole.

Sword Burst seems fine, though the name Sword Burst is already taken. I do wonder: does it still use Strength? Do you add your ability score modifier to the damage roll? It's not totally clear.

And you're still missing an 18th level feature :smallconfused:

The final thought I have is: how come such an overtly magical subclass doesn't use any mental ability score? Being able to play a telekinetic swordsman who has no knowledge of or affinity with magic at all seems odd.

Atomic_Templar
2018-06-03, 07:05 PM
Thanks a bunch!!

I apologise for the lack of polish in the naming and wording of some things as I just decided to put it out there and see what happened.

The reason for the long winded description of floating blades was a synergy with the archery fighting style to make it fit in the fighter chassis a tad better.

The intention behind the increasing number of floating blades was just to have the option of choosing from which weapon you want to attack with when you perform an attack. You would still only be able to attack the number of times your attack action grants you. I also didn't intend for it to interact with dual wielding.

For blade shield I chose the +3 on a whim after seeing it repeat in the parry skill in a few monster stat blocks. It was initially higher but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't op, so it could be changed to fit better.

The arbitrary number of uses for sword tornado was also for an attempt at balancing, but I do like the idea of once per short rest.

And for sword burst you would use the same modifier as one of your normal blade attacks.

As for the ability modifier issue, I agree that I thought it was somewhat strange to base it solely on strength, but that's just what I envisioned the type of character being. I also just couldn't pin down which mental score would work best so I pushed it to strength lol.

For the 18th level feature I saw that some of the fighter sub classes had them and some didn't so I decided to go on the side of not doing one to attempt not to make the class op.

My upmost concern is to make the class powerful but still balanced. I'm not quite sure where it lies in that regard if some things need to be added or vice versa.

Again, thank you and any other help would be appreciated!!

Composer99
2018-06-03, 10:52 PM
In all honesty, for Blade Shield you could just go whole hog and give a +5 bonus, similar to the shield spell. After all, at most you could use it 5 times per long rest, or once more per long rest than any 3rd-level sorcerer or wizard can cast shield, assuming they're using only 1st-level spell slots. What's more, you're only getting the benefit against one attack, unlike the spell, so it's hardly overpowered.

In fact, since you only get the AC benefit against one attack, you could probably even grant the ability to buff the AC of a creature within 10 feet of you as an alternative to buffing your own AC, and this feature still wouldn't be overpowered.

(Heck, since this is a 7th-level feature, you could probably just mimic the effects of shield for either yourself or a creature within 10 feet of you, and it still wouldn't be overpowered.)

Lalliman
2018-06-04, 07:25 AM
The intention behind the increasing number of floating blades was just to have the option of choosing from which weapon you want to attack with when you perform an attack. You would still only be able to attack the number of times your attack action grants you. I also didn't intend for it to interact with dual wielding.
In that case, the 3rd level feature is even weaker. It basically gives the option to attack at reach with a single one-handed weapon, which is straight-up worse than using a polearm. I'll give a suggestion for a rework below.


For blade shield I chose the +3 on a whim after seeing it repeat in the parry skill in a few monster stat blocks. It was initially higher but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't op, so it could be changed to fit better.
For the record, the parry bonus that monsters have isn't arbitrary, it's their proficiency bonus, just like the Defensive Duellist feat.


As for the ability modifier issue, I agree that I thought it was somewhat strange to base it solely on strength, but that's just what I envisioned the type of character being. I also just couldn't pin down which mental score would work best so I pushed it to strength lol.
Making it Str has its own issues though. For one it needlessly restricts this class from being used by Dex characters, but it also makes this archetype's interaction with the Fighting Styles even more nonsensical. The only ones this character can benefit from are Archery* and the ever-usable Defence. But going Archery fighting style on a Str-based character will make you not really competent at range nor melee for the first two levels of your career. So really the only option you can take that doesn't work out poorly in some way is Defence.

(* Because, as you said, they are meant to count as ranged attacks. It should be mentioned though that Archery works with ranged weapons, and so as written it technically doesn't apply.)

If you're doubting what mental stat to use, there's really nothing wrong with letting the player choose. The only issue is that Wisdom is a bit more useful than the other two, but I don't think that's going to be that influential on people's choices. You could also let them choose only between Int and Cha, which is appropriate for an arcane class.


For the 18th level feature I saw that some of the fighter sub classes had them and some didn't so I decided to go on the side of not doing one to attempt not to make the class op.
All archetypes get a benefit at 18th level, but not all are separately named. For instance, the Battle Master's superiority dice turn into d12s at 18th level, but this is mentioned in the 10th level ability. 18th level is also the point of least concern when considering balance, because you're competing with 9th level spells.

Anyways, my suggestions for an overhaul would be:
- Use a mental stat. Not only does it make sense, but being multiple-ability-dependent weakens the class, which allows you to add more impactful features. Compare how big and influential the features of the Eldritch Knight are compared to those of the Battle Master. The Intelligence-dependency is why.
- Treat the floating weapons as held weapons, so that the fighting styles actually apply.
- Take Composer's suggestion of parrying for your allies, and move the whole parry feature to 3rd level, so you can have a big and interesting feature right away.

I also don't really like the extensive use of per-rest abilities on the fighter. I think the features of martial characters should be at-will as much as possible, unless the concept clearly doesn't accommodate that.

With that in mind, I would suggest the following for the 3rd level feature. (I also cleared up the language to remove ambiguity.)


Telekinetic Warrior
At 3rd level, you must choose either Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma as your telekinetic ability score. You also learn the Mage Hand cantrip, which uses your telekinetic ability score as your spellcasting ability score.

Floating Blades
At 3rd level, as a bonus action, you can cause up to two melee weapons you hold to float into the air. These continue floating inside your space and moving with you until you are incapacitated or you dismiss the effect as a bonus action. Your hands must be empty to maintain this effect. Through mental commands, you can make attacks with the weapons as if you were wielding them. This works as a normal weapon attack, but the reach is increased by 5 feet.

When you have at least one floating weapon and a creature you can see hits you or another creature within 10 feet of you with an attack, you can use your reaction to add your telekinetic ability modifier to the target's AC for that attack, potentially causing the attack to miss.


I think that's a solid 3rd level feature that you can build from.